


Fix Definitely as Desired

by Giddygeek



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Imported, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-02
Updated: 2014-08-02
Packaged: 2018-02-11 12:42:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2068659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Giddygeek/pseuds/Giddygeek
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I'm just saying," Steve is saying, "that you don't really seem to have settled in here."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fix Definitely as Desired

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to lj in 2010. Thanks to MissPamela and drunktuesdays for beta!

"I'm just saying," Steve is saying, "that you don't really seem to have settled in here." He moves a stack of files off one of Danny's kitchen chairs and slouches down. He's got a plastic tumbler of milk (usually purchased for Grace) and a couple cookies (usually made for Grace), and certainly doesn't seem to have any problem making _himself_ feel at home.

"I'm settled," Danny says. "Apartment, job, kid, friends and other nuisances; I'm totally settled." He takes a pair of black socks out of a cardboard box and sits down on the edge of his unmade sofa bed to put them on, lace up his shoes.

"You could get a _nicer_ apartment." Steve frowns down at the cookie in his hand, thoughtful. "It wouldn't be difficult. It would be hard to get a shittier one, actually."

Danny groans, pinches the bridge of his nose. "Look," he says. "There are a number of factors at work here, okay? Factor one, have you _seen_ the real estate prices on this damn tourist trap? I'd have to take a couple second jobs, Steve, and then where would I find the time to keep you out of trouble? Factor two, the second I upgrade to a place with a lease or, God forbid, a mortgage, Rachel and Stan are going to decide to move on to the mainland for their _next_ multimillion dollar home, and I'll be stuck here in the land of the pineapples, sad and alone. Factor three, I hate packing. I mean, I hate unpacking, but I really, really hate packing; packing is the devil's work, and I'm not doing it again."

"Most of your stuff is still packed," Steve points out. "What, putting your ties in a box is going to be some huge thing?"

"That's what you take away from this conversation?" Danny stares at his partner for a moment and Steve stares back, chewing his cookie. "That's it? Like, you didn't notice the part where I complained about the real estate prices or being tied down to a lease, you just--you know what, forget it. Yes. Packing the ties would be too much _of a thing_ , so I'm not moving." He pushes up off the bed and slips his feet into his shoes. "Now, are you ready to go to work, or do you want to shove a Twinkie in your face, too?"

"Twinkies?" Steve curls his lip. "I'll pass."

"Says the man who ate like five chocolate chip cookies."

"Homemade," Steve says appreciatively. "Good job with that, by the way."

"Thank you." Danny takes a little bow, flourishing his hands. "Old family recipe; you can't have it unless you beg me, pay me a million dollars so I can rent a slightly larger shithole, _and_ ask my mom real nice."

"Hmm," Steve says, considering the deal. "Or I can keep stealing them off your counter while you're in the shower."

"Or that," Danny says. "That worked out well for you. Are you ready to _go_ , or do you want to eat the last ones? I have time to make another batch, sure I do--I mean, crime can wait, am I right?"

"Wrong," Steve says, deadpan. "Crime waits for no cookie." He finishes his milk, rinses the glass and leaves it in the sink like he thinks Danny is going to wash it better later. He grabs another cookie out of the container and munches it as he finally, finally follows Danny to the door.

"These could be a good community outreach thing, though," he says, trailing Danny to the car. "Outreach, that's huge in law enforcement theory these days, isn't it? So if you got a bigger place with a bigger oven--"

"I hate you," Danny says, getting in the car and barely waiting for Steve to get settled before hitting the gas. "I hate you, I hate you so much, almost as much as I hate this island where I'm _not_ committing to real estate, _so stop pushing_."

"For the good of the community, Danno," Steve says in this smug, sanctimonious way, finishing his last cookie. "Do it for the people."

"You know what? I hope you choke on that," Danny says.

"Too late," Steve says, and swallows the last bite with a big, smarmy grin.

"I refuse to find you charming," Danny says, reluctantly charmed. "Especially since you've got chocolate between your teeth."

~~~

And okay, so maybe things are better with Rachel. Maybe things are even kind of tentatively good with Rachel, these days. Danny looks at her sometimes when he's picking up Gracie or dropping her off, and Rachel smiles at him, and he can kind of feel the ghosts of his old feelings for her. It's a sad, shadowy kind of thing, but it doesn't hurt, and he can usually smile back at her.

Not today.

"I can't talk to you about this right now," he says through gritted teeth. "I can't. I can't talk to you right now, Rachel, are you hearing me? I am in the car. I am on my way to a crime scene. There are three dead bodies and one pissed-off governor's aide waiting for me at this crime scene, okay, and I can't--"

Rachel hangs up on him. Danny closes his phone and growls, clenches the phone in his fist, punches it against his leg. Hanging up on him when he says he can't talk is the worst trick Rachel can pull, really, because now he just wants to call her back and he's got a _crime_ to solve, he's got _victims_ , he can't just call Rachel back and _deal with her_ right now--

"Hey," Steve says. He shouldn't be taking his hands off the wheel at the speed he's driving, but he does. His right hand is on Danny's fist, stilling it, turning it over, and Steve is trying to peel his fingers away from the death grip he's got on his phone. "You're gonna crush that thing, Danno," he says, and it's only when Danny turns in his seat, focuses incredulous eyes on Steve's face, that he realizes how rage-blind he'd been a moment ago. He focuses on the tight line of Steve's mouth in profile, the way Steve keeps casting him worried glances, and takes a few deep breaths.

"Rachel," he grates out, and oh man does he ever remember all the times he's said her name this way, like it hurts him, like he wants it to hurt her if only she was there to hear it, "Rachel and Stan are taking Gracie to Europe. They're going to visit some old friends, Rachel says. It's time for Gracie to experience a childhood adventure like the ones her mother was fortunate enough to have."

"That sounds great," Steve says, carefully, eyes on him too long. "Gracie will love it. Maybe she'll bring you back a castle."

"Gracie will have time to build me a castle stone by stone, with little, what, turrets, and a moat, and a goddamned drawbridge," Danny says, free hand gesturing, building the castle word by word. "Because Rachel and Stan, they want to take her to Europe for _three months_. Her entire summer break, Steve. The summer break where I was promised _every weekend_ , because of how often their busy schedule has interfered with my Gracie-time already."

Steve has stopped trying to pry Danny's phone out of his hand. As the rage recedes a little more, Danny becomes aware of the fact that Steve's hand is tucked around his, that Steve doesn't have both hands on the wheel, that Steve is distracted by this entire debacle, that Steve is driving at unreasonably high speed.

"Take your hands off me and drive the goddamned car," he says, and Steve looks at him again, worried. "I am okay." Danny loosens his fist to prove it; Steve's fingers slide over his. "I am calm," Danny says. "When we are through here, I am calling my lawyer, who will as usual do absolute shit-good in this situation because I can't afford the same kind of lawyers Stan's got, but I am calling, and I am fine. Hands on the wheel."

"If you want, I could--"

"Leave the governor out of this," Danny says. "She's done enough. _You've_ done enough. Hands on the goddamned _wheel_."

Steve puts his hands on the wheel. Danny looks at him for another moment, trying to focus on Steve's worried frown, the silvering hair at his temples, the way he's keeping his eyes on the road like he knows if he doesn't, Danny's actually going to blow. For once he seems to realize that winding Danny up some more would not be funny and would probably be _dangerous_.

For once, he backs down from dangerous.

Eventually, Danny is calm enough to look away. He puts his phone in his pocket, straightens his tie, cracks his neck. He says, looking out his window at the scenery rushing past them, "Thank you. For wanting to help."

"I'd do anything to help," Steve says, quiet; oh great, so he wasn't backing down, then, just regrouping. He's a sneaky fucker, with his caring, and his great big crazy marshmallow of a heart. He's like a Peep someone left in the microwave just long enough. Danny drops his head into his hands but Steve forges on, takes a deep breath and says, "Danno, if you want leave, I can get you leave; you can go, you can get them to let you--"

Danny snorts a little. "I know you'd do it, too," he says, because he does. For a guy with no kids of his own and a kind of crappy family life, Steve really seems to get Danny's desire to see Grace, to be there for her, to never let her down. "But I don't have the kind of savings it would take to follow them around--I just have to take it to the lawyers and see what happens."

He shrugs, sits up and looks back at Steve. "Besides, three months is a long time to leave you guys without adult supervision--who knows what I'd come back to, right? Kono would probably have a wave tank in the basement, Chin would own the island, and you'd be knee-deep in civilians complaining about property damage."

Steve looks at him, and it'd be hard to miss either the guilt or the relief on his face; Danny's a good detective, reads people well, reads _Steve_ well enough by now that he doesn't miss it at all. Steve says, "Yeah, we're lucky to have you here to keep us in line," heavy on the sarcasm, like he doesn't mean it.

He means it.

Somehow, that softens the grip anger and fear have on him, and Danny can smile a little when he says, "You _are_ , you really are, don't forget it--" and he knows, _knows_ , that Steve probably never will.

~~~

"It's going to be such a sad day when they call me to the stand, McGarrett, and I have to take a vow to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and then I have to acknowledge what a crazy, rule-breaking bastard you are," Danny says, later that week. He slides down the wall with a grunt, scrabbles at the button on his cuff; his goddamn hands are bloody. "It's going to be terrible. I'm going to feel awful about it. Possibly you could prevent it, though, by _knocking this shit off_ ; what do you think?"

"I think there are other options," Steve says, casually. He shifts upward, fires; there's a scream from who even knows where, and Steve crouches back down like oh, hey, it's nothing, everyone takes out bad guys from insane distances with a single shot, whatever. He goes back to frowning over the cuts on Danny's arm, trying to make sure there's no glass in any of them, and says, "For example, you could marry me."

"I could--I could marry you, huh? If I could, which I am pretty sure that in this state, and with your career, I could not, I'd still testify against you." Danny thumps his head back against the wall and closes his eyes for a second. It's a luxury he shouldn't let himself take, not in the middle of a gun fight, but it's been a long day, his arm fucking hurts, and Steve's a frigging defense machine. He can stand guard while Danny gets his bearings back. "I'm a law-abiding citizen, babe; I'd do it in a heartbeat."

Steve scoffs at him. He's holding Danny's elbow in one hand, running his fingers very lightly over the inside of his arm. There are no cuts there. Danny doesn't stop him. "I don't buy it," Steve says. "You're way too loyal to testify against your husband."

Danny cracks an eye open, looks at Steve kneeling there, frowning over his arm, all concern and weapons and tattoos. "You are too pretty to go to prison," Danny concedes, closing his eyes again.

"Aww," Steve says, and then his hands are gone; Danny opens his eyes again, and Steve is firing off a shot. This bad guy goes down without a sound. Steve looks at Danny and grins. "You're sweet."

"You're welcome," Danny says. "Left." Steve moves left, and Danny shoots the guy trying to creep up behind them. "Really," Danny bitches at the guy, who hits the ground groaning and clutching his wrist, "Really, did you think that would work? You had no cover there, buddy! My kid could've done a better job of sneaking up on us--oh wait, she _has_."

"She _is_ sneaky," Steve tells the guy, moving toward him, taking his gun. "So'm I." He knocks the guy out; he's sneaky like a fist to the face.

"Stop worrying." Steve checks the clip on the gun, then hands it to Danny; Danny's piece is somewhere on the roof where this whole shitfest started. "We're fine. We haven't done anything we don't have authorization to do."

"Says you," Danny says. "Which is the problem. I mean, I know you're all, I can do whatever I want! Leap buildings in a single bound! Throw people in shark cages! Shoot a guy in Reno just to watch him die! But there are things which we technically _can_ do that we should _not be doing_ , Steve. Since we should not be doing them, maybe we shouldn't be doing them, huh?"

Steve looks up from his excessively careful examination of Danny's arm, frowns. "I think I'm tired of living my life like that, Danno," he says, and something in his eyes makes Danny wonder if they're not talking about dangling criminals off roofs anymore. "And I've never been to Reno."

Danny sighs. "Okay. Okay, fine. You go right ahead and do whatever you feel like doing, and I'll go right ahead and keep telling you off when you're _being a lunatic_ , and we'll stay out of Reno. Deal?"

Steve shrugs. "Been working so far," he says. "Deal. Shake."

They shake on it, and Steve holds Danny's hand for too long, looking at him. "Just in case," he says, smirking a little, eyes bright, "I've got this friend, he's a JP--"

Danny groans at him. " _Stop it_. Could you please--do you see where we are right now? Do you think I have time for your little jokes? No. I am bleeding. We are in the cliche firefight in an abandoned warehouse. We have left a trail of destruction through half this neighborhood. There were helicopters, Steve. _Helicopters_. And, plus, you might remember this from the dark ages known as three _seconds_ ago, but we have a deal--"

"I remember," Steve protests, still smirking. "Can you blame me for looking for a little more security? Plus, there's the thing with you still living in your crappy apartment--I'm just, you know, problem-solving."

"I'll solve your problems," Danny threatens.

"Yeah?" Steve says, eyes gleaming, and that's when the roof caves in.

~~~

"Told you I'd solve your problems," Danny says. He stands next to Steve, watching the warehouse burn.

Steve looks at him, raises an eyebrow. "With _arson_?"

"It's not arson!" Danny pokes him in the chest, scowling. "It's not arson, it's community development. Weren't you the guy who was all up on community development the other day?" He gestures at the burning building. "Now this space can be reclaimed. Maybe a park. Maybe they'll put up a life-size statue of me right in the middle. Can I commission that myself, you think?"

"Sure," Steve says, shrugging. "Not like a life-size statue of you's gonna take up all that much space."

"Haha." Danny rolls his eyes. "Yeah, you're funny, big guy; make fun of my height, no one's ever done _that_ before. You realize I could probably bench press you, though, right? If my arms weren't full of glass, anyway."

Just like that, Steve's got his deadpan, sort of angry concerned face on again, the one he wears when he's pissed that someone on his team got hurt, half like he can't believe they're all so fragile and half like he's pissed at himself for not being a bulletproof shield around them. He reaches for Danny's arm. "I thought I got all that glass out."

"No no no," Danny says, dancing back out of his reach. "Paramedics said I'm fine; I say I'm fine. I'm just teasing you. Put that face away."

"Don't tease about that," Steve says, still with the face.

"Oh fine, you big marshmallow." Danny moves back to Steve's side and lets Steve look at his arm again. "See? I've got like three Band-aids. It's nothing. The paramedic wouldn't even kiss 'em better, it's so nothing. She told me to go back outside and play."

"Well, yeah. The streetlights aren't even on yet," Steve says. He touches his fingertips to the biggest bandage, very lightly.

"Oh, in that case." Danny gestures to the burning building, the fire trucks, the cop cars, the reporters. "You wanna go find another crime ring to break up before dark? Maybe we can skirt some more laws, shake down some more guys, blow up some more buildings?"

Steve rolls Danny's sleeve back down, shrugs. "Or we could go back to my house and play video games. I've still got some of the leftovers from the cookout last weekend."

"And some of the beer?"

Steve grins a little. "Some of it, yeah."

"I'm in," Danny says, gesturing Steve to lead on. "But I have to warn you, don't take it easy on me, thinking I'm all like, the wounded soldier who can't hold his own--I will _still_ kick your ass at golf."

"You cheat," Steve complains, and Danny throws up his hands, incredulous. "Cheat! How do you cheat at Wii golf! You can't cheat at Wii golf, McGarrett, you ass--you're just a sore loser--" and they bicker about it the whole way back to Steve's.

~~~

Danny cheats. So Steve's easy to distract with a nice little correction to his stance every other swing; really, it's his own fault that Danny doesn't play fair.

~~~

"Hey, uh," Danny pops his head into Steve's office, gestures at him. "I think you're my ride tonight, boss-man--the new bullet holes in the Camaro are gonna take a while to repair, Kai says. And I, uh, I kinda need to talk to you."

That gets Steve's attention. He narrows his eyes at Danny and comes out from behind his desk, pulls Danny into his office and closes the door.

"What," he says, crossing his arms over his chest.

Danny frowns at him. "Who woke up on the wrong side of the fire-fight, huh? C'mon, lighten up--criminals captured, government property damaged, paperwork processed by yours truly--this was a good day for you."

"Is this about the Europe thing? Because you only call me boss-man when you know I'm not gonna want to hear what you've got to say next," Steve says. "Do you need the leave? I can get you the leave. I can get you the leave with a pay increase, if I have to, just--"

"I do need leave," Danny says, and it's so strange, it's so weird to watch Steve's expression tighten just a little, and realize that he'll give Danny the leave but he doesn't _want_ to, that it _bothers_ him. Danny would take offense, except for how he knows Steve wouldn't do anything to stand in the way of Danny's Grace-time, if he could help it. This reluctance is something else. Something they haven't named yet; maybe will, maybe won't, Danny doesn't know.

He holds up a hand, wanting to make the look on Steve's face go away, and clarifies, "I just need two weeks leave in a month, that's all. Rachel and Stan, they, uh, they're cutting their trip back--the lawyers talked them down to only a month. And in exchange, I get two extra weeks with Gracie."

Steve ducks his head. "Two weeks," he says, and his shoulders relax. "Yeah, of course, Danny. We can do that, of course."

Danny can't stop staring at him. "I swear to God, you are the only person on the planet who cares this much about where I am," he says, and Steve doesn't look up, just shrugs, then goes back to his desk and grabs his keys, his wallet.

"C'mon," Steve says, brushing past Danny and opening the office door. "Beer's on me."

~~~

The beer is technically still on Danny, since Steve drives them back to his house and pulls Longboards out of the fridge; Danny had brought these ones over a couple nights back, when they'd both gotten a little bruised up chasing a tiny female bank robber over roofs and under cars until Chin finally caught her with a fishing net. It had been a good day. Danny doesn't argue about it, though, because Steve is being quiet and kind of weird. He just takes his beer and follows Steve out onto the lanai, where Steve fires up the grill without stopping to ask if Danny wants to stay for dinner.

He doesn't ask that often, anymore. To be fair, Danny doesn't make a lot of other dinner plans.

He sits in a chair under the pale glow of lights on the lanai and watches Steve torment some steaks for a while, just thinking about things, like a month without Grace, two weeks with Grace, the expression Steve is wearing, and whether or not Steve ever buys his own alcohol.

"Normally, you don't frown at steaks quite so much," Danny tells Steve, when the grilling has been going on for quite a bit longer than usual. "Normally, you just sort of slap them on there and take them off again and call that done. What gives?"

Steve turns the frown on him. "Nothing gives."

Danny rolls his eyes. He takes a swig of his beer and brings the bottle with him as he gets out of the chair and comes around to Steve's side of the grill. "That steak says something gives," he says, pointing at it with his bottle for emphasis. "That steak is toasted, my friend. That steak is at least fifteen shades of black darker than you normally eat it, because you were in the Army or something and they teach you guys to eat your meat raw--"

"Navy," Steve says, turning the steaks again; it's pure stubborness now, has to be, because the steaks look undeniably like burnt logs.

"The Navy, right," Danny says, nodding. "I am always forgetting that, what with you never stripping off your shirt and diving into the water at a moment's notice. So the Navy taught you to eat steak within a minute of when it stops mooing, but _this_ steak, this steak is blackened, and nothing gives?"

"Sometimes I like to switch things up," Steve says, and finally hauls the poor steaks off the grill and onto a platter. He shuts everything down and brings the platter over to the table. He drops a rock-solid hunk of burnt meat on Danny's plate, serves himself the other, and sits down.

Danny sits, drinks his beer, and watches Steve saw away at his steak. When Steve finally gets a piece cut off, he pops it in his mouth and chews with all evidence of enjoyment. And chews. And chews some more.

"You want some steak sauce?" Danny asks brightly. "Or are you too busy savoring the memory of juices that were once part of that piece of charcoal in your mouth."

Steve looks up, and really he should be kind of terrifying, what with the shadows chasing themselves over his tense face, the big knife in his hand, the dark gleam in his eye. But his cheek bulges out like a chipmunk's. It's hard to take him seriously. Danny hands him a napkin instead.

"Just spit it out," he says, meaning the steak, meaning whatever it is going on in Steve's great big sort of terrifying brain.

Almost miraculously, Steve does. He spits the meat into the napkin with a grimace, folds it neatly, tucks it under his plate and reaches for Danny's beer; Danny passes it to him, and watches the shadows on Steve's throat as he swallows it down. "Okay," he says, when Danny's beer is gone. "All right, fine. So here's the thing. So Rachel and Stan, they move to, I don't know, _Kansas_ \--you follow them there?"

Danny blinks at him, leans back in his seat. " _That's_ what you're all wrinkled in the forehead about?"

Steve goes to get up from the table and Danny holds up his hand, shakes his head. "No, no, I didn't--I was just surprised. And no, I don't follow Rachel and Stan." He puts his hands together, palm to palm, then puts them out; forget Rachel and Stan. "I follow Grace. I go where they take my daughter. If they take Grace to Kansas--seriously, is Kansas the least-Hawaiian place you can think of? When's the last time you were landlocked, anyway?--if they take Grace to Kansas, I go to Kansas."

Steve is frowning at him, head tipped down a little and his forehead creased, his mouth a hard line. Danny knows that line; that line means murder, mayhem, people escaping justice, and, apparently, Kansas. "I don't like it," he says abruptly, frown deepening.

"I don't like it either." Danny frowns back. "You think I like it? Were you in the car when I found out about Europe? Did you see me flip my shit? You think that's anything but the tip of the iceberg of what I'd be doing if me and Gracie were being uprooted and dragged out to goddamned _Kansas_?"

Steve rubs his fingers over his mouth, shakes his head.

"I mean, the pineapples, the sun, the dudes in tiny bathing suits--present company excluded, of course, especially when you pair the suit up with the cute flippers--the rain, the bugs, the heat; this island, it's not the place I'd have chosen to be at this stage of my life," Danny says, shrugging. "But Kansas is a different kind of hellhole. Corn will fuck you up if you give it the stink-eye, if it knows you ever grilled a piece right on the, right on the cob, you know--"

"This is not about _Kansas_." Steve's frown has gone nova or something, become this expression Danny doesn't even know, and he shuts up about Kansas; he knows it's not about Kansas. But he's nervous, tension coiled in his gut, because Steve is going somewhere with this. Steve is taking this somewhere grain-fed Bible Belt boys dare not go, and it'd maybe be easier to keep talking than try to go where Steve is leading.

But what the hell, since when has Danny ever taken the easy way out?

"This is _not_ about Kansas," Steve says. "It's--sometimes I don't know, Danny." He leans forward, intent, looking at Danny like he's trying to see something in Danny's expression that makes this entire situation logical; something about Hawaii, or Rachel, or Grace, or himself, that makes sense. "So, what. Would you go? Would you even try to stay?"

Danny stares at him, then sighs. He puts his elbow on the table, head in his hand, thinks about it. He fought to stay in New Jersey; they came to Hawaii anyway. But in New Jersey, he'd felt like without them, he had nothing. His family, yeah, friends, a job, a car, a house; without his daugher, none of it had seemed to mean anything.

In Hawaii, he doesn't have anything. He's got some clothes in a box, a small team, a maniac who's going to get him killed.

But he says, "I don't know, Steve. Maybe. Maybe I would," and it's as true as anything. Maybe if it came down to Hawaii or Kansas, he'd fight for Hawaii. If for no other reason than to finally take a stand, or than to stay with people who've proven time and again that they'd fight for him, if it came to that.

Steve seems to read the sincerity of that, nods. But it's maybe not the answer he was looking for, because he still looks almost angry, in the soft lights gleaming over the table. He says, "Sometimes I think you'd be happy to go wherever, just so you wouldn't have to admit that you ever liked it here."

"I've never liked it here," Danny says, right on cue. "Never, not once, not even that day Chin made us the pizza with the bacon and the--"

Steve rolls right over him, looking him dead in the eye when he says, "Sometimes I think you like it here so much, you don't know how to deal with it."

Danny snorts, derisive. "You think a lot of bullshit, McGarrett." He pushes his chair back and stands, leans over the table with his weight on his palms. He can feel his pulse slamming away in his wrists, his temples, as he looks Steve in the eye and says, "Yeah, okay; you caught me, you tortured it out of me, all this heart-to-heart. Sure, I like it here." He bites his bottom lip, hesitating, but in for a penny, in for a pound, right? "I like my work. I like my team. It's a good team, Steve--you may have gotten a good team by accident, but you got one. I like how much my little girl likes dolphins and the damn pineapple maze. I'd rather be home, but this is better than Kansas, probably, and nowhere's as good as home, so--"

"This is home," Steve says, quietly.

"This is _your_ home." Danny gestures behind Steve, at the sprawling house, at the island beyond it. "My home has a lot more good food and a little less tourism."

"I want this to be your home, too," Steve says, and when Danny just blinks at him, surprised by the words, by the feeling behind them, Steve smiles. It lightens up his whole face, this smile, like he's got what he wanted; all Danny said was that Hawaii is better than Kansas, but Steve's looking at him like he was saying something nice about Steve's truck.

And before Danny can work past the surprise of that to process what he's doing, Steve is standing, one of his hands braced near Danny's on the table. The other curves around Danny's neck, tilting his head back to keep his eyes on Steve's.

What is he doing, Danny thinks, a little panicked because what it _seems_ like Steve is doing is getting ready to kiss him, but what he's actually doing probably has something to do with snapping Danny like a twig for making fun of his steaks, for daring to acknowledge that one day Danny is going to leave, that Steve's little 5-0 team is no more permanent than--

"I'll take home away from home, for now," Steve says, like it's a generous offer he's making, some big concession he's giving Danny, in light of the circumstances. And Danny jerks back against Steve's hand, opens his mouth to yell because _no thanks_ , no, he doesn't need Steve's _generosity_ , but Steve is kissing him. Steve is pressing gentle and sweet against his mouth, Steve tastes like charred steak and beer, and Steve is _kissing_ him.

Danny's hands scrabble against the table for a second for a second before he's kissing back. He pushes into Steve's kiss, Steve's mouth, groaning as Steve bites at his lower lip, sucks his tongue.

Then he breaks free and straightens up fast, standing on his side of the table, panting. He licks his lower lip, and watches Steve watching him. Steve's eyes are heavy-lidded, kind of sleepy until you notice how bright and sharp they are, as a rule, but they're just, now they're focused and gone soft and Danny says, "What the fuck was that, McGarrett?" because he can't just say _okay, yes_.

"Don't act like no one ever kissed you before, Danno." Steve smirks at him, lazy, all of a sudden pleased with himself; he makes Danny want to pull his hair out.

"You," he says, pointing. "You're a crazy person. People don't usually kiss me without _warning_. You're just--you're a manipulative, crazy bastard. You think you can seduce me into staying on this island as long as you want me here? You think you're _that good_ , McGarrett?"

The insults roll right off Steve, now that he seems to feel like he's got something he wanted out of this conversation; the idea of that something being Danny is a little more than his brain can handle, being a bit melted around the edges as it is.

Steve shrugs. "It's not that I'm that good," he says, modest. "It's just that you _like_ it here. You like us. You like _me_ , Danno. Maybe not enough to make you stay, if Rachel and Stan moved away with Gracie--but a lot."

"Right now, I'm thinking about asking Rachel how she feels about Idaho," Danny says, both hands pointing but who knows at what; where Idaho is relative to his current position, not a thing Danny has ever cared to know before. "Right now I'm thinking I'd live in a European _dog house_ if I had to, or an _igloo_."

"Nah," Steve says, coming around the table all casual, like they're just having a conversation, instead of a fight with a goddamned _lip lock_ in the middle. "You'd hate living in an igloo. You wouldn't be able to gel your hair, and it'd be harder to show off your tie collection."

Danny backs up, wary, because Steve at his most casual is pretty much Steve at his most dangerous. "I'd make do," he says. "Also, back off."

"I'm not even near you," Steve says, from way inside Danny's personal space bubble. To be fair, he's no closer than normal; in the beginning, he'd triggered a lot of alarms, made Danny feel so defensive he almost couldn't stand himself, but now it's almost normal to be able to feel the warmth of his skin.

Too late, Danny thinks _that_ should've triggered the most blaring alarms of all.

"I'm still wearing my piece," he says, tipping his chin back and squaring his shoulders, standing his ground. Steve might have a solid height advantage, but Danny's been going up against guys bigger than him since middle school. He knows how to work his body language.

Most of the guys he'd been going up against weren't SEALs, though.

Steve moves in, fast, faster than he has any right to be, and he's got Danny's gun, he's ejecting the clip and holding it over Danny's head like he learned his finest military skills on the playground after school. "No you aren't," he says, smirking, and when Danny doesn't go for it, he drops the gun and the clip on the table.

Then he reaches out, slowly, and puts his hands on Danny again. One on his shoulder, long fingers warm and steady over the curve of muscle, and one on his side, sliding towards his back, like Steve is a breath away from drawing him close.

"I honestly have no idea what's happening here," Danny tells him, dishonestly, because it's not like Steve is half the Smooth Dog he wants to be. But with a guy like him, a guy who's half best friend and half bully, a guy who's looking at you like he wants to be _everything_ , it's important to be able to hold your own.

Danny pokes him in the chest, a solid jab that makes Steve frown at him, take in a hissing breath. Danny jabs him again, just because. "No, seriously," he says. "It's like you lost your mind and turned into an octopus, all at once. But I am warning you, if this is all, if this is you trying to seduce me into staying when I'm not even planning on leaving yet, I will seriously complain to the governor about your managerial skills."

"I'm not trying to get you to stay," Steve says. He's looking at Danny, and Danny's looking back; Steve tips his head down, closer, and slides his hand along the curve of Danny's spine in a way that should be soothing and isn't. "I know what your priorities are--I agree with them. But until--if--the time comes where it's an issue, I want you to enjoy your time on the islands, Danny. I want you to see what's here for you. I want you to be happy. With us."

"You got a funny way of showing it," Danny says, but he doesn't pull back. He sees what's here for him, for sure. And okay, so he wants it.

"This?" Steve asks, all innocence as he leans in, his hand on Danny's back gone far enough to cup Danny's ass. "I thought you'd find this demonstration pretty effective, actually. But if you don't like it--"

"Have I _ever_ indicated to you that I don't like funny?" Danny asks, and he gets his hand fisted in Steve's hair at the nape of his neck, where it's just this side of too long because Steve is taking to the mostly-civilian life like he's been waiting for it for years, and he pulls Steve the rest of the way down. While Steve is still blinking surprise at him, Danny rises up to meet his mouth, and kisses him like it'd take a grenade blast to get him to let go.

Which maybe it would. But he isn't going to be the one to tell Steve that.

~~~

"Go ahead," he says, panting against Steve's mouth, when Steve has boosted him up onto the table, guns and steaks and empty beer bottles be damned, when Steve is standing between his legs and kissing him back all need and no finesse. "Go ahead, make me happy," and Steve grins at him, takes the dare for what it is, and goes to his knees right there on the lanai.

Danny watches him, lets Steve watch him back, while Steve's deft fingers are freeing Danny's dick from his pants. Steve strokes him slow and careful like there's going to be a test later, like Danny's going to ask him for a detailed report, maybe with a diagram.

It's hot. It's stupidly, ridiculously hot.

Danny tries to slow down his breathing, to make it last, and Steve smirks like he knows exactly what Danny is thinking, twists his fingers in a way that makes it hard for Danny to breathe at all.

"You're looking a little red up there," Steve says, faking concern. "You okay? You got a blood pressure thing we need to watch out for?"

"I'll let you know what to watch out for," Danny says, hitching his hips forward, impatient. "Just because a guy isn't as tan as you and when all the blood in his body starts--oh--" and Steve is tan, it's true, he's all golden skin and dark tattoos, and pink, pink tongue chasing a careful path down Danny's dick, _oh, fuck_. Then back up, with some devastating attention to the head, before Steve parts his lips wider and takes Danny inside his mouth. Danny lets his head hang back, closes his eyes, because too much of that and it's going to be over before he gets to make Steve _work_ for it.

Steve is laughing at him a little; Danny can feel it, and it's _good_.

"Been a while, Danno?" Steve asks, lips brushing against his dick all casual. Danny grunts, jerks his hips forward. Steve gets his hands on Danny's thighs and holds him down. "I asked if it'd been a while," he says, voice teasing, but his hands all business. "C'mon. Tell me."

Danny looks back at him, takes in everything he'd been trying to avoid seeing, for fear of going off too soon. Valid fear, what with Steve's long callused fingers on his thighs, thumbs brushing the softer skin on the inside, his shoulders still covered by that dark t-shirt, his biceps tight with muscle and darkened with ink that flows like water. His mouth is flushed, not smiling now. His eyes are dark and focused.

"It's been a while," Danny says, Danny knows Steve wants him to say. But he licks his lips, adds, "And I don't know when it was ever this good," because Steve would never ask for that, and because it's the truth.

Steve flashes a smile at him, pleased. "It'll get better," he promises, and ducks his head back down; Danny doesn't try to look away this time, because it wouldn't do him any good. Steve won't have to work for this, but that's only fair, it's only what Steve deserves for wanting to give Danny _so much_. Danny doesn't know what he did to deserve it, Steve's fierce loyalty and protectiveness and friendship, all this desire he'd apparently been bottling up--but he isn't _stupid_. He'll take it, all of it, _anything_.

And it gets better--hotter, wetter, noisier--in this devastating way that has Danny's abs clenching and his thighs tightening under Steve's restraining hands, has him making noises like he's pretty sure he's never made before. Steve promised, and he delivers; more and more until one of his hands moves, holds the base of Danny's dick, fingers flexing lightly. He jacks Danny, keeping his mouth wrapped around the head, and then his hand is sliding down. He's taking Danny deeper, and pushing a finger inside him, all insistence, competence, but careful like he just sometimes _is_ with Danny, and that's it. That's the last thread of whatever resistance Danny had left; his back bows and he goes silent, and then he's coming, and all right. Okay. So nothing was ever that good.

Steve works him through it. When Danny's back to himself enough to be just a quivering, panting mess instead of a quivering, panting _wreck_ , Steve stands, curls over him, kisses him sweet and nasty, and lets Danny get his breath back.

"Stay here tonight," Steve says, when Danny is recovered.

"Only if you promise we'll eventually get naked," he says. Steve is still fully dressed. Danny is wearing all of his clothes, although he's still hanging out of his pants, vaguely ridiculous except for how Steve keeps touching him a little, like he can't keep his hands off Danny, off his dick, which makes the vaguely ridiculous aspect of it _totally_ ridiculous, and really hot.

But Danny wants Steve to meet him in this place where he is, all wrung out and exhausted with pleasure; maybe he can finally slow Steve down a little, if he tries hard enough.

He has plenty of things he wants to try.

Steve considers him, touches him again, fingers curling around him. His own dick is still hard, tenting his cargo pants, but he seems to be ignoring it. Danny wonders if Steve is waiting for him to get hard again, and the idea of that works for him, works him so good that he thinks it might happen, even though it's been a long time since he had that kind of refractory period.

Steve seems to notice; Steve is fucking _paying attention_ , and he licks his lips, smiles, says, "Oh, I _promise_ ," and drags Danny off the table. They're stripping their way into the house then, clothes everywhere, discarded crap like socks and ties trailing them up the stairs to Steve's bed, but they're naked when they get there, and that's good enough.

~~~

The month that Grace is in Europe, Danny isn't exactly _grateful_ to Steve for being a walking sexual diversion with a startlingly easygoing attitude about getting into trouble, but. Well, maybe he is grateful, for the distraction and the entertainment and the workouts. The last time he'd felt so far away from his baby had been when Grace was full term but hadn't been born yet; it had made him insane that Grace was _right there_ but taking her own sweet time about letting them meet her.

He talks to her every other night, except when he spends the day in the hospital with a concussion and misses her call, and then he's a little too woozy for a while to really listen to her the way he wants; besides that, Steve is keeping an eagle eye on him, not letting him do much of anything.

"I'll settle for just handjobs," he says, after Steve has taken the phone from him, said good night to Grace, assured Rachel once more that Danny wasn't going to die, and ended the call. He'd have been more pissed off about Steve's authoritarian streak, if he wasn't so high on pain meds, vaguely queasy, and more than vaguely horny.

"You think I want you stroking out? Forget it," Steve says, offended. "Rachel would sue me forever."

"Rachel would not sue you for killing me with gay sex, _believe_ me," Danny says. "She'd die laughing first. Now, c'mon. If you're that worried about it, which you shouldn't be because I'm fine, no thanks to you and your run-run-crash style of police work, you can just blow me. I'll owe you one."

At that, Steve gets off the bed.

"I'll owe you _two_?" Danny yells after him, but yelling makes his head hurt, so he flops over on Steve's perfect, comfortable mattress. Now that he's alone, he has to admit to himself that he's exhausted, and the vaguely queasy feeling is probably an erection-killer.

He's lying there feeling bad for himself when Steve comes back, minty fresh and too goddamned attractive for Danny's own good, and climbs under the covers with him. "Close your eyes," Steve says, and Danny does; Steve massages his temples and it's like magic, how fast his stomach settles.

"I'll owe you one for that," he says, drifting a little. "Maybe tomorrow."

Steve snorts at him. "I'll collect when I'm sure you're not going to puke on me," he says. "Now go to sleep or I'll knock you out again myself, I swear to God," and really, Danny shouldn't let Steve order him around like this, will stop him in his tracks next time, put him in his place. But that's next time. For now, Danny's tired. His girl is fine. Steve is breathing soft and even in his ear, body warm against his, fingers moving on his skin in careful, slow circles, and Danny goes to sleep.

~~~

The last week of Grace's trip is two weeks before Danny's leave, one week after his concussion. They should be ramping things up, solving crimes left and right in preparation for being a man down, but Steve seems to be setting them up for a long, slow spell, although he just looks blank and cool when anyone calls him on it.

"I don't want too much on our plates when we're short-staffed," he finally says, when they're processing the reports for a relatively simple drug bust--relatively simple because no one got shot, no one got dangled over molten lava, and no one got goosed by their commander during an interview.

"Who are you, and what did you do with Steve McGarrett?" Kono asks, grinning; she giggles when Steve darts at her, playful. Danny says, "No, no, answer the officer's question--hey, she _asked_ you a _question_ ," until Steve turns on him, distracted, and Kono takes him down.

They high-five over him, and Steve says, "Chin, do we still have that file of applicants? The people who actually want to work on 5-0? Can you bring me that, please," and Chin says, sober and serious, "No can do, boss. None of them were crazy enough," and heads down to work with Kai in the garage, repairing the latest damage Steve's inflicted on the Camaro.

~~~

That night, Steve fucks Danny for a long, leisurely time, like it's been too long since they've done this and he has to be careful. Okay, so they haven't done anything seriously athletic since the time in the shower the night before the idiot with the fake bomb strapped to his chest had freaked out and headbutted Danny into next week. But that doesn't mean Danny's become some fragile flower, needs the extra TLC; he gets frustrated and Steve says, voice low and lazy, "C'mon, Danno, this is--just let me--"

"Like I _let_ you do anything," Danny bitches, but he stops fighting Steve for more and tries to go with it, fall into it, the challenge of slowing the roll of his hips, the grip of his own hand on his dick, the push of his tongue against Steve's when they kiss.

It's good, it's good, Danny gets into it--but the second time Steve pulls out and fingers Danny with more lube while circling the palm of his left hand over the head of his dick, Danny nearly kills him. "You know what you look like, doing that?" he asks.

Steve shrugs, looks up from watching his fingers circle and sink inside Danny. His smirk says that he knows exactly what he's doing, and what it looks like, and how it's making Danny feel like he's about to die of need. "You look like a deviant," Danny tells him anyway, just to drive the point home. "You're a pervert. Get back to it, before I get bored," but Steve is never boring--he's a lot of things, insane being the top of the list, and obsessive being somewhere in the middle, and sweet somewhere down below, but never boring.

"I'll take my balls and go home," Danny threatens and Steve grins at him, like Danny's worst lines are the best he's ever heard. He slides his fingers free and settles back between Danny's thighs, guides his dick home again. Steve pushes back inside, like Danny asked, but it's so slow that Danny curses him for it, then wraps a leg around him and gives up on hurrying him. He meets Steve thrust for thrust until he comes a long time later, feeling fucked out and wrecked as he watches Steve bite his lip and close his eyes, coming too.

~~~

After, Steve says, "Maybe I'll give the whole team some leave time. I think we could use it," and Danny says, "Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if me and Kono can take you down--" and he laughs when Steve grins at him, tugs him closer and pushes his knee between Danny's slightly sore, stretched-out thighs. He's a goddamned cuddle machine is what he is, although he'd give Danny a blank-eyed SEAL stare if Danny teased him about it; Danny's always liked skin-on-skin contact too much to tease.

It's weird, though, to think about all of them scattering for a couple weeks; weird to think about taking Grace around the island without Chin to talk to her about marine life, or Kono to giggle with her over shave ice and comic books, without Steve piggy-backing her down the beach if she gets tired and Danny's knee is sore.

It wouldn't have been weird, before. It wasn't weird when he was just with the HPD, partners and friends of a sort with Meka but distant from most of the other guys, kind of alone, isolated. He's partners and friends and _family_ with 5-0 now, and yeah. Weird.

"You'll have to send me and Grace postcards from wherever you go," he says to Steve, closing his eyes and running his fingers through Steve's increasingly shaggy black hair.

Steve snorts at him, sounds half-asleep when he says, "Where would I go?" like Danny's a moron for even thinking Steve would vacation anywhere but home. He tightens his arm around Danny's waist, kisses him sloppily through a yawn, and drops off.

Lying in the dark in Steve's bedroom, wrapped in his stupid high thread count sheets, Steve drooling a little on his shoulder, Danny thinks about his team, and his daughter, and his family. He doesn't sleep for a long, long time.

~~~

"Staycations all around," Steve says, pleased, when he gets off the phone with Kono. It's as if the whole team earns bonus points from the pineapple gods for staying on the island during their leave. He crosses his legs at the ankle, braces his arms behind him. The tattoos on his biceps and back shift as he takes a deep breath and stretches a little; no one, ever, has been more pleased with themselves than Steve McGarrett.

"Although why you're choosing to stay in your little rathole is beyond me," he says over his shoulder to Danny. "I mean, Grace can't enjoy it that much--you don't enjoy it that much--the rats don't even enjoy it that much."

Danny kicks sand at him from the safety of his chair in the shade. "The rats love it. The rats love it so much they make hundreds of rat babies in the complex. I do not love it that much, and Grace isn't a fan, but we'll be busy and--actually, you know, I don't have to justify this to you, McGarrett. _You_ don't have to like it."

"Good, because I don't," Steve says. He gets to his feet and leans over Danny's chair, shaking sand out of his hair while Danny complains at him. "You got the sand there to begin with," he points out. "Deal."

"Who got sand up your ass is what I want to know," Danny says, brushing the grains off his face, off his arms.

"Also you," Steve says. "I believe that means you owe me some help in the shower."

"That rule only applies when _you_ feel like it applies," Danny complains, but he follows Steve inside, hands on his hips to feel the flex of his muscles and the warmth of his skin.

It's no hardship to soap up Steve McGarrett, to get him all wet and sleek and turned on in that fierce way he gets when water is involved, the kinky freak. They haven't fucked in the ocean yet, but only because Danny's saving that for something special, like Steve choosing not to risk his life because it'd be faster than getting backup, or saying something nice about Danny's place, or making malasadas at home while Danny sleeps in.

He figures it's going to take a while to get there but that's okay. He has plenty of slippery, humid, fun things planned for while he waits.

~~~

"Oh look, Danny, we're interviewing a suspect in your apartment complex," Steve deadpans. "Again."

"Shut it or I beat you," Danny says. He walks by his apartment door and to the staircase. They're headed to the second level, which means it's very likely that their suspect is going to bolt, and Steve is going to launch himself down to the ground without _bothering_ to use stairs, and Danny is going to be at a distinct disadvantage, not being a desperate criminal, or insane. Some days, his job is just hard. "While we're here, I need to pick up some more ties. And some socks. Don't let me forget."

"Got it," Steve says, dry as a desert, and then, " _Hey_! Look, it's our pal Johnny. Hold up, Johnny, we want to talk to you."

Danny sighs when Johnny looks at them and books for the stairs on the other side. Steve vaults over the railing to run him down; at least they were only halfway up this time and Danny doesn't have to worry about Steve breaking his goddamn skinny ankles.

"Hey!" he shouts to Steve, coming down the stairs as Steve subdues their cursing, spitting suspect. "I'm going to get my ties!"

"And socks," Steve reminds him, as if Danny forgot in the two minutes since he asked to be reminded; this was not _that_ interesting a chase, coming to an end as quickly and pitifully as it did. Danny flips him off, then digs his apartment keys out, whistling, while Johnny says some truly foul things and Steve threatens to bury him neck-deep on the beach at low tide.

He grabs a handful of ties out of the box, a couple clean shirts, some socks that hadn't even come out of the package yet, and throws them into a bag he's got in the truck. Then he goes back to help Steve with Johnny.

"I can't believe you haven't got him hogtied and spilling everything he knows by now; what, you slackin'? You lazy today? If you're tired after running this guy down, you can go back to HQ, catch a quick nap while the real cops work," he says to Steve, hauling Johnny to his feet. He reads Johnny his Miranda rights, even though Steve says, "I _did_ that already," because Steve always misses a part, and together they walk Johnny to the edge of the parking lot, where the first blue and whites are pulling up.

"Take him to our headquarters," Steve says to the officer who reaches them first, and then he says to Danny, "Did you remember to get your socks?"

"Yes dear," Danny says, rolling his eyes in Steve's direction; the officer grins at him and ducks her head, then hauls Johnny off to the car. "And I grabbed my mom's cookie recipe--you still can't have it, but I've got a craving."

Steve's eyes glaze over a little. "I like your mom's cookies," he says, and Danny says, "I _know_ \--Christ, you're a sugar fiend sometimes, you have to promise to leave me some for the HPD headquarters, I owe Meila."

"I promise nothing," Steve says. "Except to get you home early tonight so you can make an extra batch. Meila can't have mine--"

"Oh, who said any of the batches were yours?" Danny asks, outraged. "Just for that, see if I let you lick the mixing bowl when I'm done. Don't you look at me like that, I've seen you do it, I know you don't actually care about raw eggs."

" _Salmonella_ ," Steve says, like he's going to pretend Danny hadn't _watched_ him eat raw cake batter that time Chin baked them strawberry cupcakes, like Steve cares more about possible food poisoning than what might happen if he throws himself off a bridge and into the bed of a moving truck.

"Keep it up, and I will only leave you three cookies and take the _rest_ to Meila," Danny threatens, and Steve casually puts him in a headlock, drags him to the truck, saying, "Two dozen cookies or I drive like this," and, "Okay, now it's three dozen," as Danny viciously pinches his side.

When they're done tussling, Danny's promised Steve two dozen cookies, Steve's promised him two blowjobs, and every member of the HPD that's still milling around Danny's complex is staring at them.

"Uh," Danny says, and Steve gets his aneurysm face going, and suddenly all the cops on the scene have a lot to do.

"Three dozen," Danny says, "And you don't take out that look again for a week."

"Sold," Steve says, satisfied, and it's almost worth the extra time in the kitchen for how quiet he gets as he smugly contemplates his future cookie stash on the ride back to headquarters.

It's definitely worth it for the truly spectacular blowjob Steve gives him while the cookies cool on racks in his kitchen, even though Meila's batch ends up a little burnt.

~~~

Danny meets Grace, Rachel, and Stan at the airport the day they come back, is waiting for them as close to the concourse as he's allowed; maybe a little too close, because there's a guard giving him a look. Not that Danny fucking cares, he doesn't care, he's so far from caring that he'll pull out his 5-0 ID and wave it from the gate to the fucking plane if it comes to that.

It doesn't come to that. They come around the corner looking like a family from a magazine, the kind of family people are supposed to aspire to, except Danny grew up fast-talking and foul-mouthed and loved in this loudly unconditional way that doesn't translate well in glossy print.

Grace is tired and limp the way she gets when she has to fly, Stan holding her on his hip like she's smaller than she is. But when Danny takes a step forward and says her name a little choked up, she looks for him and then wriggles out of Stan's grasp and charges him.

Danny kneels down to meet her and fold her up in his arms; he hugs her and hugs her, and when that's not enough, he picks her up to snuggle her. He's just so glad she's home.

When he finally looks away from her, Rachel smiles at him. Stan reaches out to shake his hand, and Grace sniffles, "I love you, Danno--I _missed_ you--" into the crook of his neck where she's buried her head, but she smiles at him even when he has to put her down, so. It's okay.

~~~

"I missed my baby," he says to Steve as he walks in the door; Steve raises an eyebrow at him and says, "I was right here the whole time, sweetheart," and the epic wrestling match that follows ends with a truly epic fuck on the couch.

~~~

Steve passes out with Danny anchored on top of him, has an arm across Danny's back at an angle that can't possibly be comfortable; Danny's almost uncomfortable under its weight, pinned to Steve's chest and glued there with come and sweat. Danny idly bumps his fingers down Steve's ribs, rubs circles across the surprisingly soft skin of Steve's side, and contemplates exactly how screwed he is.

I'm gonna miss _this_ , he thinks, mildly horrified by himself, when he considers his two weeks of leave. They're due to start in just a couple days and he doesn't have any plans to see Steve, the rest of the team; he's seen at least one of them every single goddamned day for months, and he's _used_ to that now. He might, there's a slight possibility that he might've come to _depend_ on them.

Worse, there's a chance he might've come to depend on this, the pleasure of Steve's body against his, and that's just. It's unacceptable, except for how he's maybe got to adjust, to accept it, because the more he thinks about it the less he wants it to change.

_Fuck_.

~~~

After that, the pressure between them builds for the rest of the week. They screw each other into the mattress at night, but the easy bickering they've fallen into--less harsh than what they'd done before they'd started burning off the sexual tension--changes tone during the day.

"No, you know what, _actually_ fuck you," Danny says, waving his hands at Steve as they head out of the office and into the garage. He's walking fast, too pissed off for patience, but Steve keeps up with him effortlessly, silently, all long legs and military training. "You want to take down armed bank robbers when all you've got on you is some swim trunks and a smile, that's cool, that's fine, I guess that's your business. But maybe before you start calling me in on this shit, when I am happy just eating my breakfast and waiting for you to stop risking death on that skinny little surfboard you love so much, you could stop first and think."

He shoves his way through the double doors and heads for the Camaro, parked alone way in the back; Kai is still so pissed about bullet holes that Danny doesn't even want to risk little dings from other driver's doors for like a year. "Ask yourself two questions," he says. He holds up a finger, which just coincidentally happens to be the middle one. "Am I about to do something stupid? The answer is probably yes, which, what the fuck ever. But your follow up question, that's the kicker." He holds up another finger. "Is this stupid thing I am about to do going to get Danny hurt, piss him off, or cause him to _miss_ that breakfast he was so planning on enjoying? If the answer to _that_ is yes, then you should maybe _reconsider what you are about to do_. That way, maybe we're both happier, and maybe our life expectancies go up by a couple days."

Steve's face is tight, blank. "The hostages had a life expectancy of about ten more minutes," he says. "We did the right thing and you know it, I know you know it, what's this bitching really about? And where are you going? Truck's over here."

"I am taking the car." Danny brandishes the keys. "I'm going to go home and watch stupid cop shows on TV so I can laugh at people who follow procedure even less often than you, and I'm thinking I might, maybe, get stupid drunk while I'm doing it. Maybe I'll do a shot every time some suspect gets dunked in a shark tank. Oh wait, that's not TV, that happens _in my real life_."

"Okay, but we're not having sex on your sofa bed," Steve says. "You'll throw out your back and whine for a week. Again."

Danny stops in his tracks. "Oh, no, no, buddy, that's--you have not been in this kind of situation before. I know you have not been, because you don't seem to realize that sometimes when you spend a lot of time with a person, they get on your nerves, they get on your _last_ nerve, and you need a night apart. Someone goes to sleep on the couch. In this situation, I am going _home_ to sleep on _my_ couch, because I am a gentleman, and I know how this works. What are you doing?"

"Checking the camera angles," Steve says, and then his hands are on Danny's chest, shoving. Danny resists but a second too late; Steve's got momentum and he's using it. He gets Danny pinned in a corner between a slightly-damp concrete wall and someone's brand new Volvo; a Volvo in paradise, it's practically a crime.

"Oh, I don't _think so_ ," Danny says, rolling his eyes at Steve, who returns the look tenfold; his face is going to get stuck that way. It's like he thinks he has the right to be more pissed off than Danny in this situation but Danny's the one getting exhaust and road grime on his nice fresh shirt--at least, the nice shirt that had been fresh before the bank robbery.

Danny gets his hands on Steve's shoulders and shoves; Steve's face gets a little more pissed off, and then Steve is crowding closer, _too close_.

He says, "Don't sleep on the couch tonight, Danny," and Danny blinks at him because that voice, that's not a fighting voice--that's not even an ordering voice, a Commander McGarrett voice. That's Steve, asking--and then Steve kisses him, hard but careful. He has a hand on Danny's neck and the other arm bracketing him in against the wall, and he's all warmth and ocean water and insanity and _alive_ against Danny as they kiss.

Danny might be pissed off, might be days of pissed off for no good reason other than he doesn't know what he's _doing_ here, but that doesn't mean he's got no heart. He gets more angry the more his heart's involved, for fuck's sake. He kisses back, winds his hands in Steve's soft t-shirt so tight that he'll probably tear it when he tries to let go. He kisses like he's trying to make it clear--don't get yourself killed, dumbass, or I will find a way to haunt your ghost; you look too good in those swim trunks to ruin them by bleeding on 'em; sleeping on the couch doesn't mean saying goodbye.

And maybe Steve doesn't talk like Danny does, maybe they're not always speaking the same language--Steve's got succinct down to an art form, can write a report in ten word or less, can listen to Danny's bullshit for fifteen minutes and say, "When you think you're done, okay, just take off your pants so I know to pay attention again." But they connect anyway; they _get_ each other like Danny's rarely experienced before, and thinks Steve might not have even known was possible. Danny kisses back, and feels Steve's lips curve against his, feels Steve get a little less careful, and then Steve relaxes against him all at once for the first time in too long.

So of course a door slams shut somewhere else in the garage, echoing, and footsteps head their way.

Steve doesn't jump back, too much training for that--he eases away, just a little, and listens intently. "Next aisle," he says. The concrete wall and the Volvo give them shelter from anyone not walking right past them, as well as from the cameras.

"I gotta talk to Security about that," Steve says, clearly having the same thought as Danny and following it to the logical conclusion, if your logic is Steve McGarrett's; someone else might figure this out and launch who knows what, an armed invasion via the garage. He seems to think stealth is all for him, not for other people.

It's a good thing he's mostly on the right side of the law.

"Back up," Danny says. "Back up, give a guy some room--you want to give me some air, here?--thank you." He straightens his tie, his cuffs, while Steve gives him a couple inches of space and a baleful look.

"Get in the truck," Danny says, and Steve's expression goes blank again, guarded. "Oh, stop it, Princess, I changed my mind. You're still in trouble, don't think you aren't--but I decided you can make it up to me."

Steve's face does this _thing_ sometimes, where his eyes go warm and he smiles like a kid, and Danny can only be glad he saves that look for special occasions, because it's twice as gleaming as his knife, and at least as dangerous as his bare hands.

"Nah," Steve says, casual in a deliberate way that makes Danny roll his eyes. "You drive. I'll ride with you, get a chance to make some calls about the blind spots in here."

"You got someone you can call about the blind spots in _here_?" Danny says, reaching up to flick Steve's temple; Steve grabs his hand and holds it, and that sunshine warm look on his face gets a little more ridiculous.

He says, "I got _you_ for that, Danno."

Danny groans, kisses him for that-- _has_ to kiss him for that--and says, "C'mon. Let's go home."

~~~

Danny takes Steve apart with his mouth and hands. He sits on the edge of Steve's bed because his knee is sore from chasing bank robbers, and he plays his hands over Steve's hips and thighs, his ass, jerks him off a little while he's going down on him. He likes the way Steve tries to stay still without locking his knees _or_ pushing his hips at Danny's face. He especially likes the way that Steve sometimes loses it, groans and loses control, body shaking under Danny's hands.

After, Steve sprawls across the bed with an extra degree of looseness all over, like he's relaxed to a degree Danny hasn't even seen before, and he says, "Thank you for not sleeping on the couch," in this sincere way Danny doesn't know how to handle.

Danny says, "Yeah, yeah, this was better; bonding after a bad day, who knew," and Steve rolls over with a grin, sprawls across Danny's chest and kisses him. He just hangs out there for a minute while Danny wraps his arms around him, and he breathes against Danny's temple.

"Any day you make it home is a good day," he says, quiet. "We have a lot of good days." And then he reaches out to turn off the bedside lamp, flops off Danny's chest, and goes back to his loose sprawl over most of the mattress. His arm is touching Danny's, and his leg, and his breathing is deep and even although he isn't asleep yet; Danny closes his eyes and focuses on his own breathing, and yeah. Yeah, maybe they do.

~~~

Friday dawns, a good day, a great day, because Danny gets his breakfast and Steve doesn't get shot at, and it's the day they're closing up shop for a couple weeks; an excellent day. They spend the morning tying up loose ends--Chin tries to teach Steve a bit about cop paperwork, which Danny's pretty sure doesn't take.

After lunch, they're all pretty unfocused. Danny closets himself in his office for an hour to talk to Grace, and by the time he gets off the phone with her, he's like a kid at Christmas. He's overexcited. He makes a list of things he needs to do back at his apartment--fuck, when was the last time he brought food back there?--and then goes to tell the rest of the team that he's taking off. There doesn't seem to be any point to sticking around, throwing paper airplanes at the ceiling, when he could be getting ready for his girl.

The rest of the team is in Steve's office. They're focused, intent, working together. They've crowded in on Steve's couch to watch some surfer on the high def projection screen because that's a valid use of departmental resources, and they're talking the foreign language of surfing stats like the obsessed fans and former pros that they are.

"You got a TV twice that size at home," Danny points out, watching the three of them lean in the same direction like they can surf with the guy on the wave if they just try hard enough. "Actually I think it's bigger; I'm pretty sure people are life-sized on that thing. Why don't you go there to watch this?"

"And make you miss some weird-ass mainlander basketball rivalry?" Steve asks, not looking away. "Thanks, but no thanks."

"Not tonight." Danny crosses his arms over his chest, hesitates. "I was just coming to talk to you about leaving early, actually, and heading home. I get Grace tonight; we'll be at my place, so you'll have your big screen all to yourself."

Steve freezes for a second, and then grabs a remote, pauses the video, and looks at Danny with a cold, blank face on. It's his SEALs-hate-bureaucracy face, the one he gets when someone's standing in his way, not the one he gets when he's running and swimming and leaping at criminals; he has a different face for happily fucking bad guys up.

"You're actually still planning to take Grace back there for two weeks," he says, in that dry tone Danny hates when it's directed at him. He doesn't know what Steve wants from him here, but it's starting to hurt not to be able to give it to him. They had a good night last night, but he can feel a week's worth of scraping at each other raw on his skin, and it's too much like the bad times with Rachel, when he couldn't do anything but make mistakes with her.

"It's _where I live_ ," Danny says, frustrated but trying hard not to snap because he doesn't want to go out for a couple weeks on this kind of note. He doesn't trust how they'll fit together when they come back. He's had that happen before, a fight that bled over into the silence that's the end of a good partnership. That's almost exactly what happened with his marriage.

"It _shouldn't be_ ," Steve says, and he _is_ snapping; his voice cracks like a whip.

Danny buries his fingers in his hair and fists his hands like that'll help him hold his temper in. He makes an incoherent noise of rage, then says, "You know, this is, this is ridiculous, McGarrett. Ridiculous. This has been going on for months, so okay, you tell me this, why not fix the problem? You're so big on getting me in a new place, why not, why not--here's a solution, why don't you just give me yours?" he asks, snide, and then he hears himself. That, more than the looks he's getting from Chin and Kono, stops him in his tracks.

Steve stands, tall and straight; all soldier, but he says, "I _did_ ," in this weird tone, half like he's fighting with Danny and half like he's doing something else, maybe giving up. Danny's never pictured Steve giving up, and apparently for good reason--it makes something twist in his chest, hard and urgent; it hurts.

It pisses him off.

He gestures at Chin and Kono, says, "Uh, you guys. You mind if I have a word with the boss man here? Alone? In private? Because otherwise you might want to get your vests on. I'm sensing shrapnel."

Chin says, "Uh, cuz, we should--" and drags a fascinated Kono out of the room. Danny holds his temper long enough for the door to close behind them before he rubs his chest and starts yelling,

"You--" Danny shouts, "You _what_? You have not, you haven't--if constant nagging is your way of asking a question--"

Steve looks at him, eyebrows raised, like _hello, yes_.

"I will beat you to death with your own--" and he's looking around for something to beat Steve to death with. "Your own remote," he says, snatching it up. "I will do it, I will arrest myself afterwards but I will _do it_. You can't just nag a guy until he moves into your place!"

Steve grabs the remote and yanks it out of Danny's hand, scowling down at him. "Oh no?" he asks. "So you tell me, Danny--you go right ahead and tell me, when's the last time you went to your apartment?"

Danny makes a frustrated noise, burying his fingers in the hair at his temples. "I go home, I'm home all the time!" he says. "I was home--"

He stops. He stares at Steve, who gestures at him like go on, go on, you get it now? and then he slumps onto the couch and drops his elbows to his knees. He puts his face in his hands, groans.

"Oh fuck," he says, defeated. "I live with you."

And Steve says, " _I know_."

For a moment, they're both quiet. Danny tries to let that sink in; he lives with Steve, he stays there all the time, all his clothes are there, most of his stuff, his cookie recipe. He sleeps in Steve's bed and makes pancakes in Steve's kitchen. He fucks Steve on the couch, and they fucking _snuggle_ on Steve's beach. And Danny noticed how much time they were spending together, he did; he realized that he was setting a bad precedent, but somehow he'd missed the part where he'd been paying rent on a place where he didn't live anymore.

He stands back up and looks at Steve. Licks his lip. "Okay. Okay, I can deal with this. I am dealing with this. I am a calm and rational motherfucking adult. So please tell me you're not sleeping with me because of how bad you hate my place, because otherwise I am going to lose the calm and the rational and the adult, and I am just going to kick your ass."

Steve looks at him, all blank-faced stillness.

Danny groans, scrubs his hands over his cheeks, says, "Are you actually, are you standing there, trying _not_ to tell me that you pimped yourself out over _real estate_?"

Steve jerks his shoulder, sort of a nonchalant shrug, except it seems more like the twitch of someone who has never been nonchalant in his life and isn't about to start now. "It wasn't pimping," he says, like he's trying for indignant, for normal, but he can't quite get there because he's trying to defend himself against the charge that he thought of sleeping with his partner as a problem-solver. "You can't just go around accusing a guy--

"I can. I actually can, because the fact that you have to tell me you weren't pimping makes me think you were pimping," Danny says.

"It wasn't _like that_ ," Steve says, looking at him sidelong, frustrated. "More like. Look."

A long, aching pause, and Danny flails his hands, says, "Come on, yeah, I'm looking--I'm looking right at you, McGarrett-- _talk_." like Steve is a suspect, a hostile witness, a guy Danny's been living with for _weeks_ under _false pretenses_.

Steve narrows his eyes at him. "Or better yet, shut your mouth and _listen_ , Danno, okay?"

Danny waves a hand at him all go on, go on, I'm listening; says, "I am all ears, but I'm not hearing a damn thing worth listening to, I gotta say."

"Because you're _still talking_ ," Steve says, and it's the reluctant amusement in his voice that shuts Danny up, more than the frustration. He mimes zipping his lips shut, tucking the key in his pocket, crosses his arms over his chest, and Steve grins at him a little. "I wish it were that easy," he says.

"And I wish you were explaining--adequately explaining, perhaps with tiny words so I can understand it--how this happened." Danny shakes his head. "You actually dragged me off to your bed because you didn't like how mine _folded out_?"

"You can't shut up for two minutes, can you?" Steve stalks closer, looming; he'd be intimidating if Danny hadn't seen him wandering around with a toothbrush in his mouth and a towel wrapped around his head just that morning. At Steve's house. Where they've been living together. Yeah, Danny's not intimidated, he's just _pissed_.

He tips his chin back and puts his hands on his hips, and Steve rolls his eyes. "I couldn't stand thinking about you being ready and willing to leave whenever, okay?" he says, fast and choppy, like he's forcing it out. "I'm not telling you I was going to try and make you stay forever or anything, I'm just telling you what I've already told you a hundred times, which is that I didn't like it. I couldn't stand thinking about you sleeping in that rathole anymore, or playing with Grace there."

Danny licks his bottom lip, sticks his tongue between his teeth; sometimes, that's just what it takes to keep the words in.

Steve slashes a look at him again, and he's flushed, color almost fever-deep over his cheekbones. "But that's not. It's not really why," he says, in this voice that sounds like Danny is torturing him by making him talk, like Danny's breaking through some kind of commando silence code by demanding Steve explain himself. This is worse than state secrets, that voice says; this is a thousand times more important.

Steve hesitates, looks away. "I wanted you in my bed--I just wanted you with me."

Danny tilts his head and makes a gimme gesture with his hands; c'mon, c'mon, more.

Steve makes a frustrated noise. "Isn't that _enough_?" he asks, leaning over Danny a little more, right in his face. "Seriously, Danny. I just wanted you to be happy and with me on this, okay? I swear it. Everything else, that just happened to work out in a good way."

"Just happened to work out the way you wanted, you mean," Danny says, but mostly just to say it. It's hard not to keep pushing Steve's buttons, even when he can see that the guy is killing himself trying to make something clear.

Steve clenches his hands. "Are you going to keep--yeah, you know what? It worked out the way I wanted. And I knew it wouldn't if I asked you," he says, and the look on his face says he knows he's pushing buttons right back. "So I didn't ask you."

"Oh, you earned some points and then you lost 'em, babe," Danny says, shaking his head. "You went right back into the red there--"

Steve raises his voice and rolls right over that. "And this didn't just work out for me, Danny. I mean, you stop for a minute, you think about it--it was easy, you get a lot out of it, and this way, you're living in a decent place, but you can move out any time if you've gotta go."

He hesitates then takes a couple steps back, tucks his hands in his pockets, takes them out again and puts one on his belt buckle; he's fidgeting. Danny hates it when Steve fidgets. It usually ends in explosions.

He takes a step toward Steve but Steve wards him off with a hand out, then takes a deep breath. He looks Danny in the eye, and says, fast, like he's just got to get through it, "There's nothing holding you here."

Danny licks his lip, bites it, watches Steve. The guy looks like he's dying. "Did that actually hurt you to say?"

"Maybe," Steve says. He shrugs. "Yeah, maybe a little."

"Then stop talking," Danny says. He holds up his hand. "No, don't. Stop freaking out, too. You said the magic words already. I mean, usually the magic words are _please_ , or _thank you_ or _I'm sorry_ , but in this case--this one case, so don't go starting to expect special treatment all the time--I'll take 'I wanted you with me,' and ignore the rest of the bullshit you're spewing. 'There's nothing holding you here,' as if."

Steve takes a step closer. "Bullshit?"

"Yeah." Danny jabs a finger at him. "You didn't notice how I wasn't exactly pining for my place? You didn't notice how I was liking it, going home with you? Maybe you didn't notice how I was keeping myself up nights, thinking about how deep I was into it? I mean, yeah, you're maybe not the brightest guy I know; you've taken a lot of hits to the head, plus you probably shake some brain cells out in the ocean every time you take a digger off a wave. But I was the moron who let himself get all stupid about something that's pretty obvious in retrospect, right? And you already nailed why that was."

Steve reaches out, watching Danny carefully, like he thinks his regular partner's been replaced by a bomb that might go off at any second, with any move. "I did, huh?"

"You said it yourself, the night you told me you wanted to be at home on this island," Danny says. "You said I liked it here. You said you thought I wanted to stay." And he shouldn't do this, because Chin and Kono are still in the office somewhere, he's pretty sure, but he lets Steve draw him in, wraps his arms around Steve's back. He leans back enough to look Steve in the eye and says, "You're an asshole, but you're not wrong," then grins at Steve's indignant face, and kisses him.

Steve pushes into the kiss hard and fast, like he thinks Danny's going to take it away from him, go to Kansas with it or something. Danny lets him, pushes back at him only enough to hold his own. It's easier to do once Steve gets an arm behind his neck; he crowds Danny, but it's good, support and want and need.

Besides that, Danny's used to it now. Neither one of them is the kind of guy who's good at distance, it turns out, not with each other. Steve couldn't stand to have him living half an island away, Danny poked and prodded even when he knew he might get a faceful of fist for his trouble; it all came to this somehow, and this is good, is great, is not office-appropriate.

Danny pulls back and drops his head, cheek to the soft, well-worn, dark green t-shirt Steve is wearing, probably to highlight how fucking good he looks in green. "Hold that thought," he says, panting against Steve's shoulder. "Not my ass, not my ass right now--the _thought_."

"The thought of your ass?" Steve asks him, eyebrows raised, and squeezes his ass again. "Can't I just hold your actual ass instead?"

"You're an actual ass," Danny says, and he pushes against Steve's chest until Steve lets him go.

He doesn't go far. "Chin," he yells, opening Steve's office door. "Kono? If you guys are still here, go home, get out, unless you want to be permanently scarred by the idea of what we're about to do on Steve's couch--"

"They're gone, Danno," Steve says, amused. "I don't think they were waiting around through all that."

"That's where you're wrong, boss," Chin says, strolling out of Danny's office; of course, it has the best line of sight into Steve's. Kono follows him, grinning.

Danny points at them. "I knew you two would be waiting to make sure I didn't kill him," he says, then jerks his thumb over his shoulder at Steve, lurking behind him. "See, he's still alive, he's got all his limbs, now get outta here. Go enjoy your vacations, you earned 'em."

"See you Monday?" Kono asks Steve and Danny turns his head, does the fucker not know what a vacation _is_? Steve nods, says, "Barbeque at the house," with a shrug. "Surfing. Maybe s'mores. I guess you and Grace can be there, if you want."

"You're terrible," Danny says to him, then tells Kono, "Monday. See you then. Now get out," and he closes Steve's door as Chin and Kono leave, grinning.

He turns back to Steve and crosses his arms over his chest, leaning against the glass. Steve is looking at him, intent, focused.

"Why is it that you're always wearing your shirt when I want it gone?" Danny bitches. "Otherwise you're never wearing it, you're the Great Shirtless Wonder, but when I want you naked--"

"If you want something done, do it yourself," Steve says, shrugging, and yeah, that's something Danny can go for, big time. He crosses the room, pulls Steve's shirt off over his head, enjoys brushing the backs of his fingers over Steve's ribs and the soft inside of his arms; Steve isn't ticklish but that kind of touch makes the hair stand up on his arms and makes his eyes go dark real fast. When the shirt is tossed aside, Danny touches Steve's shoulders, his arms, where ink swirls, and he pinches one of Steve's nipples, grins at the sound Steve makes.

Steve toes off his boots, then he's undoing his belt, popping the button on his pants. "I could be convinced to help you out," he says, and then his cargo pants _and_ his underwear are hitting the floor and he's naked in the cool glow of the overhead lights. Danny touches the sleek line of his hip, skims his fingertips through the hair trailing down his abdomen, and says, "You're the best helper. You are, really. C'mere," and he pulls Steve with him to the couch, pushes him down.

Steve sprawls, all muscles and tan skin against the dark leather, looking like a porn star, and says, "You thinking you might at least take off your tie for this?"

"Everything's coming off." Danny starts stripping, tosses his tie, his shirt, toes his shoes off to who knows where. "I want you to fuck me, right here in your office. But you're going to have to ask me, so that the next time you're sitting in here thinking about what just arranging things so you get what you want, you'll maybe stop and think that sometimes you need to _ask me_."

"I can do that," Steve says, and when Danny looks at him, Steve catches his gaze; he's watching Danny's eyes when Danny's pants come off. "I could totally do that."

"Good," Danny says, and straddles Steve's lap. His knee is going to shriek at him later, but the height difference is good like this. He leans down to kiss Steve, bites his lip, slides his tongue across it. "I knew you could learn," he says. "Now let's see you practice."

~~~

"All right, no more afterglow, no more wallowing. Who taught you how to wallow like this, anyway, Navy-boy? I'm pretty sure it counts as conduct unbecoming, or something." Danny says eventually. He peels himself off Steve, off the couch, winces as he puts weight on his knee, but it's good, it's all good. "We've got to get back to the house before I go pick up Gracie--you want to come pick her up with me? We could do dinner on the way back."

"Could shower here," Steve says. He's lazy, sprawled out. The leather can't be any more comfortable on his ass than it was on Danny's legs, but he looks like he could hang out there forever, naked and satisfied. It's conduct pretty fucking becoming, actually; Danny should write the Navy a letter.

"No, no, no." Danny fishes through the clothes on the floor. He tosses Steve's boxer briefs, cargo pants, and t-shirt at him, digs around for his own underwear. "If my daughter's gonna be staying at our place," he says, and holy fuck it's terrifying and exhilirating to make it real, "then we gotta patch the rest of the bullet holes."

Steve is quiet for a moment, then stands, his clothes bunched in his hands. He nudges Danny and Danny straightens up, looks at him; Steve leans down and kisses him, gentle, slick, almost sweet. Then he says, quietly, "You got it, Danno. Let's go home."


End file.
